“It’s not easy, and I think I’m slowly becoming a schizophrenic because of it,” Dobrev said during the CW’s Kick-Ass Women panel at the TCA Press Tour last week. At a cocktail party after the event, she spoke further with a small group of reporters, including Show Tracker, about getting to play two such diametrically opposed characters.

“Elena, I get to do a lot of emotional scenes. She goes through such a roller-coaster ride,” she said. “With Katherine, I just get to [mess] with everyone. I just get to play around and have fun and be bad and get away with things that all throughout my life I’ve been taught by my parents not to do. Now I get paid for it.”
But it might not stop with Elena and Katherine. Could Dobrev be playing a third character at some point? “Hypothetically,” she said. “Because Katherine is the first doppelganger, that means there was one before her. So I guess we’ll what happens.” She’s up for the challenge too even though she’s got her hands “very full right now” with two roles. “I’m sure it would be interesting,” she said.

Until then, she just wants to get out of the tomb, where Katherine has been trapped without blood for several episodes. “I’m going tomb crazy myself,” she said. “I’ve been in the same wardrobe for six episodes. Every time I shoot that, they have to actually make my hair dirty and mess it up.” Real dirt and teasing goes into Dobrev’s hair, as well as drawn-on, under-eye dark circles to make the CW star look like a “desiccating” and “sickly” vampire. “I love getting nitty-gritty and doing the opposite,” Dobrev said, but she’s ready for a change of scenery. “I feel dirty and gross and I want to shower. I’m ready to come out of the tomb too. I’m ready to never be in the tomb ever again.”

Thankfully, she still gets to play in the sun as Elena, who’s focused on a suicide mission right now” to save her friends and family in exchange for her life. But will Elena keep up her end of the deal with Elijah?

“I think so,” Dobrev said. “Elena will do whatever it takes to keep everyone around her safe. So whether that ends up being keeping the promise or, in the spur of the moment, something happens and she has to, in order to keep her friends safe, not keep her promise, then she will do whatever it takes.”

And if Elena does survive, what will happen to her after graduation? Would she like to see college in her future? “Yeah, of course,” she said. “But she hasn’t really been in school much lately, so I don’t know how she’s going to graduate…. Well you know what, she probably still gets As in all of her schoolwork even though she doesn’t go because her aunt is dating her teacher.”

Where you know her from?

Nina Dobrev is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. She currently stars as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW television teen drama The Vampire Diaries.

Up next: Vampire Diaries Episode 12 “The Descent”

Stefan has his own ideas about Elena’s new plan for the future. While Damon tries to get the truth out of Jules, he asks Elena to keep an eye on Rose, a situation that turns unexpectedly dangerous. Caroline and Matt try to be honest about their feelings for one another, and Tyler’s reaction to Caroline’s generosity comes as a surprise to her. Damon struggles to hide his true feelings when a life-and-death crisis hits him harder than he expected. Air date: January 27th 2011